“I sprang to my feet, whipped a chair off the
counter, and sent it whirling at the fool who had
shouted, turned, came into another round a corner,
sent him spinning, and rushed up the stairs. He
kept his footing, gave a view hallo, and came up the
staircase hot after me. Up the staircase were
piled a multitude of those bright-coloured pot things—what
are they?”
“Art pots,” suggested Kemp.
“That’s it! Art pots. Well,
I turned at the top step and swung round, plucked
one out of a pile and smashed it on his silly head
as he came at me. The whole pile of pots went
headlong, and I heard shouting and footsteps running
from all parts. I made a mad rush for the refreshment
place, and there was a man in white like a man cook,
who took up the chase. I made one last desperate
turn and found myself among lamps and ironmongery.
I went behind the counter of this, and waited for
my cook, and as he bolted in at the head of the chase,
I doubled him up with a lamp. Down he went, and
I crouched down behind the counter and began whipping
off my clothes as fast as I could. Coat, jacket,
trousers, shoes were all right, but a lambswool vest
fits a man like a skin. I heard more men coming,
my cook was lying quiet on the other side of the counter,
stunned or scared speechless, and I had to make another
dash for it, like a rabbit hunted out of a wood-pile.
“‘This way, policeman!’ I heard
someone shouting. I found myself in my bedstead
storeroom again, and at the end of a wilderness of
wardrobes. I rushed among them, went flat, got
rid of my vest after infinite wriggling, and stood
a free man again, panting and scared, as the policeman
and three of the shopmen came round the corner.
They made a rush for the vest and pants, and collared
the trousers. ‘He’s dropping his
plunder,’ said one of the young men. ’He
must be somewhere here.’
“But they did not find me all the same.
“I stood watching them hunt for me for a time,
and cursing my ill-luck in losing the clothes.
Then I went into the refreshment-room, drank a little
milk I found there, and sat down by the fire to consider
my position.
“In a little while two assistants came in and
began to talk over the business very excitedly and
like the fools they were. I heard a magnified
account of my depredations, and other speculations
as to my whereabouts. Then I fell to scheming
again. The insurmountable difficulty of the place,
especially now it was alarmed, was to get any plunder
out of it. I went down into the warehouse to see
if there was any chance of packing and addressing
a parcel, but I could not understand the system of
checking. About eleven o’clock, the snow
having thawed as it fell, and the day being finer and
a little warmer than the previous one, I decided that
the Emporium was hopeless, and went out again, exasperated
at my want of success, with only the vaguest plans
of action in my mind.”
